Primal
Olivia Williams
when I was young everyone said how much I looked like You / now that I am grown they say I look like mom / I don’t know if they think that because I actually do or if because they think I’m a — [woman] it’s Our personality that is similar / Our eyes / Our laugh it’s genetics / DNA / is it how We share the primal urge to find a woman? to love / to touch / consume / absorb / the way We mirror a bear — use the edge of a doorway to scratch Your back / I learned to copy you
(the moment I realized how much I was like you) like the bear in the tall redwood / forest
climbing, hunting, foraging, scratching, sleeping / it’s in Our blood / I rely on my senses / I used to mirror what you do through this evolution I have surpassed both who You are and used to be I am the new species / even Darwin couldn’t have predicted \ ‘discovered’ / devote Your life and believe in a religion that has cursed me / for following my instincts I know what it is to be one with nature — I am natural / it’s primal the way it is for You that is how it feels for Me
86 Etchings
